“It doesn't matter if a cat is black or white as long as it catches mice.”

“When our thousands of Chinese students abroad return home, you will see how China will transform itself.”

“The United States brags about its political system, but the President says one thing during the election, something else when he takes office, something else at midterm and something else when he leaves.”

“Keep a cool head and maintain a low profile. Never take the lead - but aim to do something big.”

“It doesn't matter if a cat is black or white as long as it catches mice.”

“China the Communist Party still pays lip service to traditional Marxist–Leninist ideals, but in practice it is guided by Deng Xiaoping’s famous maxims that ‘development is the only hard truth’ and that ‘it doesn’t matter if a cat is black or white, so long as it catches mice’. Which means, in plain language: do anything it takes to promote economic growth, even if Marx and Lenin wouldn’t have been happy with it. In Singapore, as befits that no-nonsense city state, they followed this line of thinking even further, and pegged ministerial salaries to the national GDP. When the Singaporean economy grows, ministers get a raise, as if that is what their job is all about”